Invasion of Privacy
by Okami Tatsuya
Summary: Touko explores N's room. Months later, N explores hers. (K plus for one minor swear word.)
1. N's Room

"Through this door is the world which was provided for Our Lord N. I don't feel anything when I go in there, but maybe you will…"  
Touko reached for the knob, afraid of what she might find. Would it be like all of the other rooms in the castle, a carbon copy of a medieval bedroom? Or would it be a typical teenager's room, with posters of cars and swimsuit models glaring down at her?  
It was worse.  
Stepping inside, Touko was transported to a parallel universe. One in which an innocent boy spent his days playing, all alone. The train set was missing a few pieces of track, but the electric motor faithfully buzzed along what little road there was, back and forth, constantly. A second train car had somehow come to rest in the basketball hoop, having perhaps been thrown across the room by a frustrated child. The basketball, sitting in the middle of the half-court, bore a name:_ Harmonia_, a permanent reminder of a surname that the ball's owner never seemed to use.  
Taking up an enormous amount of space in the already small room was a skate ramp, also littered with toys. Beyond that, she found the skateboard, half-buried in a box of brightly colored blocks. A dart board, with a few darts stuck to the white circle near the edge, and a framed landscape which dangled by one hook, a dart piercing a watercolor tree. It hung limply, a beast vanquished by a child's plaything.  
The wallpaper and carpet were mismatched, as if the interior decorator couldn't care less what the room looked like, so long as its inhabitant stayed put. The walls were a purple check pattern, while the floor was carpeted with a clouds. Even when playing, the young N had been raised to feel as if he were above even the clouds.  
This room could have belonged to any child on earth. But it belonged to_ him_, the boy who was even now preparing to become supreme king of Unova. Touko had been blind, but now she saw. She saw how N had been raised - no, _trained_ - from birth to take on the role of "hero." He thought that he was acting of his own free will, that the things he knew were the only truths, but his truths were lies. He was a dog, trained to follow his master obediently. Here was his kennel to prove it. She had thought him to be Team Plasma's spearhead, but she now realized that he was nothing but a figurehead. A clueless, innocent boy, brainwashed into thinking that this was the life he'd chosen.  
She straightened up, resolve coursing through her veins and shining in her eyes. N had called her neutral. She had been, until this very moment. Her friends had discovered their goals, and now, finally, she had found hers. She would march up that spiral staircase, grab N by the ear, and set him straight. He needed to think for himself, and she was going to help him see that if she had to bang his head against a brick wall. Turning on her heel, she glided across the room to leave. Her hand was on the knob, but she didn't turn it. Instead, she turned back around, picked up the basketball and tossed it into the hoop, knocking the train to the floor. The ball bounced into a corner as if to hide itself and avoid being thrown again. She spun around to go for real this time, thinking to herself:  
_For luck._

* * *

I wrote this over a year ago and just now discovered it in my fanfiction folder. I was mildly impressed with my past self, and decided to post it on an 8 AM whim. Critique is greatly appreciated and flames welcomed.


	2. Touko's Room

"You can go check out Touko's room, if you want. Mind you, she hasn't been home in a while, so it might feel a little neglected."  
N reached for the knob, wondering what he would find. How much of Touko's personality was prominent in her room, and how much of it would he find hidden on her bookshelf, under her bed? He pushed open the door and stepped inside.  
Touko's room was rather plain, but what N saw was an honest, open girl who didn't care much about material possessions. A potted plant greeted him, obviously maintained painstakingly by Touko's mother. A coffee table, bare of decoration, rested happily beside a flat-screen TV. N pushed the power button and found that a show called _Wawalk_ was playing. Was this the last thing that Touko had watched before leaving? Was it her favorite show?  
Sitting in front of the TV was a Wii console and a single remote. N pressed eject to check the game, only to find it empty. But beside the television was a small bookshelf, sorted into three sections. The top was novels, arranged alphabetically by author. The middle was books about Pokémon, sorted in the same way. And the bottom was a single shelf of games. These didn't appear to be sorted in any particular order, though N noticed that the spines of the boxes were more worn-down the farther left he looked. So they were sorted, left-to-right, by how much Touko played with them. The game farthest to the left was titled_ Okami_.  
His footsteps muffled by the thin purple rug, he checked the garbage can beside the uncluttered desk. He said a silent _thank you_ to Touko's mom for emptying it; he didn't want to stoop so low as to dig through the girl's trash! But the laptop, open on the desk, was beckoning to him. He plopped down onto the cushion, tracing a circle on the track pad with his middle finger. The computer awoke, displaying a blue screen and a white text bar. The word _password_ was hovering a centimeter above it, and he felt as if it were mocking him. Unsure what Touko might choose as her password, he typed in _Pokémon,_ feeling foolish. A window popped up, asking him if he had forgotten the password. He clicked_ yes_, and a hint displayed onscreen.  
_1, 5, 42, 3, 15_

A code of some sort? He played around with it a bit, assuming that the letters represented letters. When the computer finally locked him out, he gave up, feeling frustrated.  
What the hell kind of hint was that? It was like she had programmed this password to protect the computer's contents from_ him_, specifically. It was infuriating, and he pushed away, discouraged. Striding past the plain wooden table, he came to Touko's bed. This was where she had spent her nights, dreaming of the future and of whatever it was that she hoped to achieve. Taking up a corner of the comforter, he held it to his nose and inhaled slowly. It smelled clean, like detergent. But there was another smell there. A warm, sweet smell, which clung stubbornly to the fabric. It smelled, however faintly, of Touko.  
His initial exploration done, N walked back over to the bookshelf. He hoped to discover which book was Touko's favorite, and pulled a novel off the top shelf at random. Flicking through the pages, the numbers in the top corner caught his eye. Thirty-five, thirty-six… Of course! The password for the computer was hidden in one of these books! N checked the computer again. One probably meant the first shelf. Five was the blue book that was fifth from the left. Forty-two was a page number, three a paragraph, and fifteen a word - the password.  
_ "You must have the resolve to do what is right, lest the purity and light of the future be tainted with evil."_  
Was it really that simple? N replaced the book carefully where he had found it, crossing to the computer and typing the word_ light_ into the box. The screen went black for a moment, then became white. Words hovered on the white, left there for him to see, and him alone.  
_ Check under the bed._  
Confused, he walked back to the bed, getting on his hands and knees to reach under it, searching blindly. His hand hit something, and he heard it roll away and connect with the wall. Stretching his arms, he grabbed it and pulled it out.  
A basketball. An ordinary basketball. Why was it here? He hadn't seen a single basketball hoop anywhere in town. It seemed awfully out of place here. He turned it over, and his breath hitched in his throat when he saw the word, written in permanent marker.  
_ Harmonia._  
N wondered briefly how she had gotten his old basketball, but then it occurred to him that when she had been trekking through the castle to fight him, she had probably stopped in his room. She hadn't had the ball with her when they'd fought in the throne room, so she must have grabbed it on the way out. Tempted though he was to take it with him, it would be too bulky to carry easily. Instead, he set it on the foot of her bed, with his name displayed proudly should Touko ever decided to set foot in her own room again. She had left him a sign, so he had returned the favor. He returned to the computer for a moment, then left, politely declining Touko's mom's invitation to rest there overnight. Touko would arrive home the next morning, tired from walking all night. When she got in, she would collapse onto the bed and discover the basketball, which would lead her to the computer, and she would see his message:  
_You know where to find me._

* * *

This is just how I always imagined every one of the Pokémon protagonists. If they were materialistic, they would stay home, right? In this sense, I feel like I would make a very bad trainer. I'd be too lazy to leave my room.

The password on my laptop was set up in a way similar to Touko's when I wrote this. I've long since changed it, but my code led the hacker to_ Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox_. The specific sentence that _I_ used was "The password is CENTAUR. All caps."

_Okami_ is a fantastic game which was starting to gain some traction when I wrote this. It's way more popular now, for which I am glad. Clover lost a lot of money making that game, and it was really deserving of more. It's still one of my favorite games.

As in the last chapter, I welcome all critiques. My writing style has evolved, so to speak, but if you have any helpful hints for my fifteen year-old self, I'll make sure that she gets them. Thank you.


End file.
